Egoist anarchism
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Egoist anarchism or anarcho-egoism, often shortened as simply egoism, is a
Max Stirner and his philosophy
Max Stirner's philosophy is usually called "egoism". He says that the egoist rejects pursuit of devotion to "a great idea, a good cause, a doctrine, a system, a lofty calling", saying that the egoist has no political calling, but rather "lives themselves out" without regard to "how well or ill humanity may fare thereby".[2] Stirner held that the only limitation on the rights of the individual is one's power to obtain what they desire.[3] He proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of State, property as a right, natural rights in general and the very notion of society—were mere phantasms or "spooks" in the mind. Stirner wanted to "abolish not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members".[4]
Max Stirner's idea of the Union of egoists (German: Verein von Egoisten) was first expounded in The Ego and Its Own. The Union is understood as a non-systematic association, which Stirner proposed in contradistinction to the state.[5] The Union is understood as a relation between egoists which is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will.[6] The Union requires that all parties participate out of a conscious egoism. If one party silently finds themselves to be suffering, but puts up and keeps the appearance, the union has degenerated into something else.[6] This union is not seen as an authority above a person's own will. This idea has received interpretations for politics, economics, romance and sex.
Stirner claimed that property comes about through might: "I do not step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which I respect nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property! [...] What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing; [...]. Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property".[7] His concept of "egoistic property" not only rejects moral restraint on how one obtains and uses things, but includes other people as well.[8]
Influence and expansion
Early development
Europe
The
Another later German anarchist publication influenced deeply by Stirner was Der Einzige. It appeared in 1919 as a weekly, then sporadically until 1925 and was edited by cousins Anselm Ruest (pseudonym for Ernst Samuel) and Mynona (pseudonym for Salomo Friedlaender). Its title was adopted from the book Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (The Ego and Its Own) by Max Stirner. Another influence was the thought of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.[12] The publication was connected to the local expressionist artistic current and the transition from it towards dada.[13]
Stirner's influence also expressed itself in a different way in Spanish and French individualist anarchism: "The theoretical positions and the vital experiences of French individualism are deeply iconoclastic and scandalous, even within libertarian circles. The call of nudist naturism (see anarcho-naturism), the strong defense of birth control methods, the idea of "unions of egoists" with the sole justification of sexual practices, that will try to put in practice, not without difficulties, will establish a way of thought and action, and will result in sympathy within some, and a strong rejection within others".[14]
Illegalism
Illegalism was an anarchist practice that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland during the early 1900s that found justification in Stirner's philosophy.[15] The illegalists openly embraced criminality as a lifestyle. Illegalists usually did not seek moral basis for their actions, recognizing only the reality of "might" rather than "right". For the most part, illegal acts were done simply to satisfy personal desires and needs, not for some greater ideal.[16]
As a reaction to this, French
United States and United Kingdom
Some American individualist anarchists such as
Several periodicals were undoubtedly influenced by Liberty's presentation of egoism. They included the following: I published by Clarence Lee Swartz, edited by William Walstein Gordak and J. William Lloyd (all associates of Liberty); and The Ego and The Egoist, both of which were edited by Edward H. Fulton. Among the egoist papers that Tucker followed were the German Der Eigene, edited by Adolf Brand; and The Eagle and The Serpent, issued from London. The latter, the most prominent English language egoist journal, was published from 1898 to 1900 with the subtitle A Journal of Egoistic Philosophy and Sociology.[19]
American anarchists who adhered to egoism include Benjamin Tucker, John Beverley Robinson,
James L. Walker (sometimes known by the pen name Tak Kak) was one of the main contributors to Benjamin Tucker's Liberty. He published his major philosophical work called Philosophy of Egoism in the May 1890 to September 1891 in issues of the publication Egoism.[21] James L. Walker published the work The Philosophy of Egoism in which he argued that egoism "implies a rethinking of the self-other relationship, nothing less than "a complete revolution in the relations of mankind" that avoids both the "archist" principle that legitimates domination and the "moralist" notion that elevates self-renunciation to a virtue. Walker describes himself as an "egoistic anarchist" who believed in both contract and cooperation as practical principles to guide everyday interactions".[22] For Walker, the egoist rejects notions of duty and is indifferent to the hardships of the oppressed whose consent to their oppression enslaves not only them, but those who do not consent.[23] The egoist comes to self-consciousness, not for the God's sake, not for humanity's sake, but for his or her own sake.[24] For him, "[c]ooperation and reciprocity are possible only among those who are unwilling to appeal to fixed patterns of justice in human relationships and instead focus on a form of reciprocity, a union of egoists, in which person each finds pleasure and fulfillment in doing things for others".[25] Walker thought that "what really defines egoism is not mere self-interest, pleasure, or greed; it is the sovereignty of the individual, the full expression of the subjectivity of the individual ego".[26]
Friedrich Nietzsche (see anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche) and Stirner were frequently compared by French "literary anarchists" and anarchist interpretations of Nietzschean ideas appear to have also been influential in the United States.[27] One researcher notes: "Indeed, translations of Nietzsche's writings in the United States very likely appeared first in Liberty, the anarchist journal edited by Benjamin Tucker". He adds that "Tucker preferred the strategy of exploiting his writings, but proceeding with due caution: 'Nietzsche says splendid things, – often, indeed, Anarchist things, – but he is no Anarchist. It is of the Anarchists, then, to intellectually exploit this would-be exploiter. He may be utilized profitably, but not prophetably'".[28]
Mid-20th century
In the 1960s, the French
Existentialist anarchism
In the United Kingdom, Herbert Read was influenced highly by egoism as he later came close to existentialism. In Herbert Read Reassessed writes that in Read's Education Through Art (1943), David Goodway writes: "Here we have the egoism of Max Stirner assimilated in the anarchist communism of Peter Kropotkin". He cites Read for this affirmation which shows egoism's influence:
Uniqueness has no practical value in isolation. One of the most certain lessons of modern psychology and of recent historical experiences, is that education must be a process, not only of individuation, but also of integration, which is the reconciliation of individual uniqueness with social unity [...] the individual will be "good" in the degree that his individuality is realized within the organic wholeness of the community.[30]
Late 20th century and today
Sidney Parker was a British egoist individualist anarchist who wrote articles and edited anarchist journals from 1963 to 1993 such as Minus One, Egoist, and Ego.[31][non-primary source needed] In Ego and Society, he writes: "Against the mystique of the sociocrat, stands the conscious ego of the autocrat, whose being is pivoted within, and who regards 'society' simply as a means or instrument, not a source or sanction. The egoist refuses to be ensnared by the net of conceptual imperatives that surrounds the hypostatization of 'society' preferring the real to the unreal, the fact to the myth".[32][non-primary source needed] Donald Rooum is an English anarchist cartoonist and writer with a long association with Freedom Press. Rooum stated that for his thought "[t]he most influential source is Max Stirner. I am happy to be called a Stirnerite anarchist, provided 'Stirnerite' means one who agrees with Stirner's general drift, not one who agrees with Stirner's every word".[33][non-primary source needed] An Anarchist FAQ reports: "From meeting anarchists in Glasgow during the Second World War, long-time anarchist activist and artist Donald Rooum likewise combined Stirner and anarcho-communism".[34][non-primary source needed]
See also
- Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche
- Ethical egoism
- European individualist anarchism
- Individualist anarchism
References
- ^ Leopold, David (August 4, 2006). "Max Stirner". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- ^ Moggach, Douglas. The New Hegelians. Cambridge University Press, 2006 p. 183
- ^ The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge. Encyclopedia Corporation. p. 176.
- OCLC 29702707. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
- ISBN 978-0-7102-0685-5.
- ^ OCLC 47758413. Archived from the original(PDF) on 12 October 2012. Retrieved 1 September 2012.
- ^ Stirner, Max. The Ego and Its Own, p. 248.
- ^ Moggach, Douglas. The New Hegelians. Cambridge University Press, 2006 p. 194.
- ^ and (1907-04-20). "Ideas of Max Stirner; First English Translation of His Book". The New York Times.
- ^ Karl Heinrich Ulrichs had begun a journal called Prometheus in 1870, but only one issue was published. Kennedy, Hubert, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: First Theorist of Homosexuality, In: 'Science and Homosexualities', ed. Vernon Rosario (pp. 26–45). New York: Routledge, 1997. [ISBN missing]
- ^ "Among the egoist papers that Tucker followed were the German Der Eigene, edited by Adolf Brand..."http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=796&Itemid=259 Archived 2011-06-04 at the Wayback Machine "Benjamin Tucker and Liberty: A Bibliographical Essay" by Wendy McElroy
- ^ Constantin Parvulescu. "Der Einzige" and the making of the radical Left in the early post-World War I Germany. University of Minnesota. 2006
- ^ Taylor, Seth (1990). Left-wing Nietzscheans: the politics of German expressionism, 1910-1920. Walter De Gruyter.
...the dadaist objections to Hiller´s activism werethemselves present in expressionism as demonstrated by the seminal roles played by the philosophies of Otto Gross and Salomo Friedlaender.
- ^ Díez, Xavier (30 November 2018). "La insumisión voluntaria. El anarquismo individualista español durante la dictadura y la segund arepública (1923-1938)" [Voluntary submission. Spanish individualist anarchism during the dictatorship and the second republic (1923-1938)]. Germinal: Revista de Estudios Libertarios (in Spanish) (1). Archived from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
- ^ Parry, Richard. The Bonnot Gang. Rebel Press, 1987.
- ^ Parry, Richard. The Bonnot Gang. Rebel Press, 1987. p. 15.
- ISBN 978-0-946061-04-4.
- ^ Tucker, Instead of a Book, p. 350
- ^ ISSN 0161-7303.
- ^ "Egoism".
- ^ McElroy, Wendy. The Debates of Liberty. Lexington Books. 2003. p. 55
- ^ John F. Welsh. Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism: A New Interpretation. Lexington Books. 2010. p. 163
- ^ John F. Welsh. Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism: A New Interpretation. Lexington Books. 2010. p. 165
- ^ John F. Welsh. Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism: A New Interpretation. Lexington Books. 2010. p. 166 [ISBN missing]
- ^ John F. Welsh. Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism: A New Interpretation. Lexington Books. 2010. p. 164
- ^ John F. Welsh. Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism: A New Interpretation. Lexington Books. 2010. p. 167
- ^ O. Ewald, "German Philosophy in 1907", in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 17, No. 4, Jul., 1908, pp. 400-426; T. A. Riley, "Anti-Statism in German Literature, as Exemplified by the Work of John Henry Mackay", in PMLA, Vol. 62, No. 3, Sep., 1947, pp. 828–843; C. E. Forth, "Nietzsche, Decadence, and Regeneration in France, 1891–95", in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 54, No. 1, Jan., 1993, pp. 97–117; see also Robert C. Holub's Nietzsche: Socialist, Anarchist, Feminist, an essay available online at the University of California, Berkeley website.
- ^ Robert C. Holub, Nietzsche: Socialist, Anarchist, Feminist Archived June 21, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Daniel Guérin,Anarchism: From Theory to Practice
- ^ Herbert Read Reassessed by David Goodway. Liverpool University Press. 1998. p. 190.
- ^ "Sid Parker". nonserviam.com. Archived from the original on January 27, 2004.
- ^ "EGO AND SOCIETY by S.E. Parker". nonserviam.com. Archived from the original on 2007-08-06. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
- ^ Donald Rooum: Anarchism and Selfishness. In: The Raven. Anarchist Quarterly (London), vol. 1, n. 3 (nov. 1987), pp. 251–259 (here 259)
- ^ ""G.6. What are the ideas of Max Stirner" in An Anarchist FAQ". Archived from the original on 2014-09-10. Retrieved 2014-09-09.